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There will be some time jumps in various places, to get through the first year of Redmond. There is no time jump in this chapter but will be some coming up. As for the second year of Redmond, well, you probably won't want any time jumps there ;)

"I think it's a wise thing Gilbert didn't stay with us over the summer. After I invited him I regretted it. Not because of him," Marilla said quickly. "I had asked him in a motherly gesture, I suppose- thinking we ought to take care of him, being alone in the world now! ...But upon later reflection I realized that I really must be thinking as Anne's guardian...mother. And speaking as her mother, I ought not be allowing the two of them to live under the same roof unmarried. There's far too much temptation! Now I don't think Anne has any prurient interest and I trust Gilbert not to push her, but still- if they intend on marrying each other, there must be boundaries, until a real official commitment is made."

"When d'you think it'll happen, Marilla?" Matthew asked.

Marilla looked flustered. "Gilbert will have to finish college before anything else can be decided."

Matthew nodded slowly. "...Medical school, too?"

"Don't you think so?" she asked with a sharp look at her brother.

"I suppose," Matthew said slowly. "But it's an awful long time for her to be alone."

"She's not alone," Marilla replied, offended. "She has us."

"Aint' what I mean," Matthew said.

"I know," she admitted quietly. "Four years- well, seven really, if he's to go on to medical school- it didn't seem so long to me before...when she complained about it, I thought she was being foolish." Marilla shook her head. "But now- now that all of her peers are moving on- Ruby and Jane have teaching positions already!- and Diana and some of the others are continuing on to Redmond after Queens...well, it doesn't seem fair for her to spend such long years just waiting for her life to start…"

"That's what I think, too," Matthew said. "She had to grow up before she was ready, but now she doesn't even get to live a grown person's life."

"But moving away with Gilbert while he's in college- that just isn't doable," Marilla told him firmly. "She'll be alone and miserable. He can't help it, he'll have a lot of things to accomplish and she'll be his very last priority."

"True," Matthew agreed reluctantly.

Marilla sighed. "Really, if Redmond wasn't so far away, I wouldn't mind their marriage, because even if Gilbert was preoccupied with his work, we'd be nearby for her to have our support and company. ...I wouldn't have to feel worried for her, then."

The big finish of their lovely summer together was Walter's birthday.

Marilla made an enormous layer cake with blueberries decorating the top, because Walter's favorite thing to eat at the present time were blueberries, and they needed a lot of cake, because he had a lot of little friends now.

But Walter's favorite thing about his party was not the cake, it was the icecream. Last year, after all the time Anne spent churning, he had only made a face and spit it out, but this year he said, "Thankoo mama," and ate more than his fair share.

Jane brought a gift to the party from herself...and an extra gift that she left on the Cuthberts' porch with the offer to take it away if they didn't want it.

Walter was allowed to keep it, but only because he'd already laid eyes on it before Anne had the chance to remove it.

It was a bear- a huge brown bear, as big as the boy himself.

"Who it come from, mama," he asked.

"Uh...Aunt Jane's mama," Anne told him reluctantly. She didn't really mind if he knew, she supposed it might help him: Even though he hadn't been in close proximity to Mrs. Andrews for several months, he still asked about her often, wanting to know when she was going to come see him. And he embarrassed Anne every week at church with the way he called to her. Walter did not understand why mama would not allow him to go see her, when she was so very near him at church. And Anne felt like a terrible person for denying him his plea.

But Anne was pleased that despite the excitement of the new toy, Walter still preferred the little black bear that Gilbert had given him long ago.

Only two weeks after Walter's birthday, it was time for Gilbert to go to Redmond. The Cuthberts' decided to travel there with Gilbert and see him all settled in- not only to help him but to help Walter; the sting of Gilbert leaving made less painful by the excitement of a train trip.

"I never gone on a train, mama," Walter said, bouncing up and down.

"Yes you have," Anne told him, holding onto him with a tight grip so he wouldn't run off. "You've been on a train four times."

But of course Walter did not remember.

Anne considered his first train trip to be the one they took when she was still pregnant- when they had to go live in the boarding house across from the hospital. She remembered how she had told him, that morning: "You've never been on a train before. I think you'll like it, except the best part is looking out the window, and you can't do that." He had given her a good strong kick, and she had replied, "It isn't my fault you can't look out the window! You didn't exactly grow in a convenient place to be able to do things like looking out of windows! If you come home with us on the train, I'll let you look out the window then."

And he did come home with her, but she hadn't let him look out the window then, because he was four weeks old and slept the whole time. And that was his second train trip.

His third trip was traveling to the Warrens, and his fourth trip was bringing him home from the Warrens.

Anne picked Walter up, now, pretending it was so he could see the train coming, but really it was just because she needed to feel him in her arms after thinking about the time she almost left him.

She still had hard days, and maybe that would never go away. Maybe her view of Walter as Billy's son would never go away, either- the physical resemblance was uncanny, and even her imagination could not allow her to pretend it wasn't so.

But.

He was her baby. He'd grown inside her body, listening to the beating of her heart for nine long months, comforted by the sound of her voice and the feel of her arms around him. He had been born to her through pain and hard effort, and he wanted to be at her side from the very first.

She didn't want him to be somebody else's.

Gilbert, as the recipient of the Avery scholarship, had nicer accommodations than his fellow students.

Walter was allowed to bounce on his bed while the rest of them got settled in. Marilla was already cleaning the baseboards and giving the light fixtures a critical eye even as Matthew was still getting his luggage brought up. Anne brushed off his suit and hung it up, then went over his good shirts as if she thought it was her responsibility to make sure they were all in presentable condition. She had been the one to iron them, before they were packed.

"Let's take you out for supper," Marilla said when all had been put right. "A nice supper before we leave you."

The end of that sentence came out with a struggle.